What's in Emanuel's basement?

Emanuel eligibility hearing wraps up
Published: Dec. 17, 2010 at 10:23 AM Former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel laughs as he prepares to testify as a witness at a hearing before the Chicago Board of Elections in Chicago on December 14, 2010. Emanuel's candidacy for mayor of Chicago is being challenged on the basis of a law that requires Chicago residency for one year prior to running for municipal office. UPI/Brian Kersey CHICAGO, Dec. 17 (UPI) -- A hearing on Rahm Emanuel's eligibility to run for mayor of Chicago end...

Items Found in Emanuel's Crawl Space
Chicago mayoral hopeful Rahm Emanuel did indeed store stuff in the Chicago home he rented to a tenant when he moved to Washington, the Chicago Sun Times reports. His lawyers visited home and took pictures after his tenant testified nothing was there. Emanuel has argued "the fact they left the items there while Emanuel went to Washington D.C. to work as President Obama's Chief of Staff shows he always planned to return to Chicago -- and therefore should be eligible to run for mayor." ...

Rahm's crawlspace: Center of the Board of Elections hearing
Day two of Rahm Emanuel ’s Board of Election’s residency hearing turned into a debate about what is and what isn’t in Emanuel’s basement.  Laurie Halpin , wife of Robert Halpin who momentarily ran for Chicago mayor and temporarily refuses to move out of Emanuel’s House which he has been leasing on Hermitage Avenue, challenged Testimony given the day before by Emanuel.  On Tuesday, Emanuel spoke of family treasures being stored in the basement of which Lau...

Witness: Emanuel's renter wanted $100K to move out
CHICAGO (AP) - A hearing over residency challenges to Rahm Emanuel's mayoral bid grinded on Thursday with a witness testifying that Emanuel's tenant wanted $100,000 to move out of his Chicago house when the former White House Chief of Staff came back to run for the city's top job. Paul Levy, a friend of Emanuel's who has advised him on Real Estate matters, said he reached out to businessman Rob Halpin and his family about breaking their lease early so Emanuel could move back into his home after...

Making the Case on Rahm Emanuel's Residency
Chicago - After three days of Testimony over Income Tax records, boxes in a basement and the location of a Wedding Dress, lawyers on Thursday laid out legal arguments over whether Rahm Emanuel should appear on the ballot for Chicago mayor. The leading attorney against Mr. Emanuel’s bid, Burt Odelson, said that local case law had found that a Candidate must have a “physical presence” in Chicago for a year prior to an election. He argued that Mr. Emanuel, who worked as President Obam

President Obama's "B.S. list" for Senate seat: Hynes, Duckworth, Jackson and Schakowsky
After Valerie Jarrett publicly pulled out of contention for the U.S. Senate seat appointment, Rahm Emanuel called Rod Blagojevich's top aide. Emanuel had a list of "acceptable" names and it was from the then-President-Elect, according to Testimony in Rod Blagojevich's Corruption trial. Emanuel, now Obama's Chief of Staff, relayed four names whom "the president would find acceptable," according to then-chief of staff John Harris, who is on the witness stand. They were: Tammy Duckworth, State Com...

Boxes found! OR Photos faked?!
Boxes containing some of the belongings of Chicago Mayoral Candidate Rahm Emanuel and his family were found in a crawl space of their home in the Ravenswood community. The mayoral-race mystery of where Candidate Rahm Emanuel stored boxes of personal items has been solved. Attorneys for Emanuel visited the house he owns in Ravenswood at 1:30 p.m. Thursday, located the much-discussed “crawl space,” looked inside and found the valuable items Emanuel had maintained he had stored there. T...

Did Rahm Emanuel steal a NYT vending machine after Obama's Inauguration?
The Chicago Sun Times has a picture of Rahm Emanuel's storage space in Chicago. See it here. You'll notice there's a New York Times machine there. I'm pretty sure it's the edition from the day after Obama's inauguration -- Rahm's first day as White House Chief of Staff. See this picture. Am I right? How did he get the machine? Did Rahm Emanuel steal a NYT vending machine after Obama's Inauguration? ...

Danny Schechter: When Will Americans Emulate the Street Protests in Europe?
William Shakespeare put a key question this way: "To be, or not to be?" Today's Economists and policy makers pose a different choice: to spend or not to spend. Governments throughout the west are in a panic as Debt mounts and economies contract. Their solution is cut, cut, cut, in the name of a doctrine called Austerity. They are slashing budgets, trimming public Payrolls and arguing fatalistically in the spirit of Margaret Thatcher's philosophy, "There Is No alternative." (TINA.) Austerity is...

Rahmstoppers Face Off With Rahm at Hearing
By Dionne Searcey Having spent our formative years of adulthood in Chicago, we at the Law Blog figure we could come up with a list of questions that would settle in a jiffy the kerfuffle over Rahm Emanuel’s residency that is playing out in a hearing there. Hearing officer: Mr. Emanuel, where can you find the best Cheeseburger, best cheese fries, best record store, best band and best tall downtown building to sneak onto the roof of and watch the ice floats along the Chicago River? If he can’t an..

Obama agenda: Aloha?
President Obama will delay his annual trip to his birth state of Hawaii in order to sign the tax bill. The New York Times’s Leonhardt notes that Conservatives’ political attacks against the health-care law are similar to the Conservatives’ (unsuccessful) crusades against Medicare, Social Security, and other expansions of the safety net. "Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s former Chief of Staff, testified yesterday about his wife’s Wedding Dress, family China, and car...

Renter Testifies at Emanuel's Residency Hearing
(Chicago) — A friend of Chicago mayoral hopeful Rahm Emanuel's wife testified Wednesday that she helped pack away their family heirlooms and other mementos for storage before Emanuel moved to Washington to become President Barack Obama's Chief of Staff. Mee Kim-Chavez spoke at a Chicago Board of Election Commissioners hearing on residency challenges to Emanuel's bid for the city's top job. She said she helped Emanuel's wife, Amy Rule, store 20 to 30 boxes in a crawl space under a home add...

Emanuel awaits board's decision on residency challenge
Deliberations have started in Rahm Emanuel's mayoral ballot challenge hearing and are expected to conclude next week.  That's when the former White House Chief of Staff will learn whether he overcame the objections to his eligibility for the Feb. 22 mayoral primary ballot.  At issue is whether Emanuel meets the one-year residency requirement to appear on the ballot. 

Emanuel's attorney, Kevin Forde, told the Chicago Board of Election officials that the former congressman always inte

Rahm Emanuel's Residency Hearing: Day Three To Focus On Plan To Return From Washington
Chicago — Attorneys for former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel are focused on showing that he always planned to come back to Chicago after he finished working for President Barack Obama. A Chicago Board of Election Commissioners hearing on residency challenges to Emanuel's mayoral bid enters its third day Thursday with more witnesses expected to testify. More than two dozen opponents say he doesn't have a legal right to run because he lived for nearly two years in Washington. Wed...

Rahm Emanueuls Chicago residency still open to dabate
Attorneys for former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel are focused on showing that he always planned to come back to Chicago after he finished working for President Barack Obama. A Chicago Board of Election Commissioners hearing on residency challenges to Emanuel’s mayoral bid enters its third day Thursday with more witnesses expected to testify. More than two dozen opponents say he doesn’t have a legal right to run because he lived for nearly two years in Washington. Wednesday...

Were Emanuels tenant demands for $100K related to residency case?
* The plot thickens… The Real Estate manager who helped Rahm Emanuel buy his North Side home testified in a residency hearing today that Emanuel’s renters wanted $100,000 to end their lease early when he returned to Chicago this fall to run for mayor. […] Levy said he passed the $100,000 figure to Emanuel, who called it “ridiculous.” The counter offer was $5,000 a month for every month early the Halpins left, Levy said. The lease is set to expire in mid-2011. * An...

Rob Halpin tried to shake Rahm down legally for $100,000
First it was reported that Rob Halpin refused to get out of Rahm Emanuel 's house when Rahm decided to leave Washington, D.C. as President Barack Obama 's Chief of Staff to concentrate on a run for mayor of Chicago after Mayor Richard M. Daley announced he was 'outta there.'  Though the law says a person may be out of the city to be a federal public servant, the trouble began for Rahm concerning elibigility to run, Naturally, Halpin's refusing to get out of Rahm's home assisted two dozen no...

Bill Cosby to raise money for city mayoral challenger Otis Rolley
Comedian, actor and Jell-O pitchman Bill Cosby comes to Baltimore next month in an unexpected role: political Fundraiser. Cosby will be the star attraction Jan. 11 at a $4,000-a-plate dinner at the Tremont Grand on North Charles Street to benefit Otis Rolley, a former city housing and planning official who is challenging Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake in the Democratic primary for mayor. There also will be a $500-a-head reception and a $75 stand-up performance. But don't expect a laugh a minute ...

At Issue in Emanuel Hearing: Boxes in Basement
Chicago — The contents of Rahm Emanuel’s basement took center stage on Wednesday in an election board hearing to determine whether he can run for mayor. A tenant who is renting Mr. Emanuel’s home here told a hearing officer that she had never seen any of the boxes Mr. Emanuel said he stored in the basement when he left for Washington to work as President Obama’s Chief of Staff. The tenant, Lori Halpin, testified during the second day of hearings over whether Mr. Emanuel meets the

Obama Makes Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians List
Judicial Watch Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government Corruption, today released its 2010 list of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.” The list, in alphabetical order, includes: Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Rahm Emanuel, Former Obama White House Chief of Staff, Senator John Ensign (R-NV), Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL), President Barack Obama, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY),...

Regrets? The Birther Soldier Has A Few.
The ultra-conservative site WorldNetDaily has been Flooding the zone on two stories -- outrage at the American Conservative Union for allowing the gay Republican group GOProud to participate in CPAC, and the court martial of Lt. Col. Terry Lakin, who has refused to deploy because he doubts that Barack Obama is an American citizen. The Lakin story isn't going as well. He was convicted yesterday on three counts of disobeying orders, which could put him behind bars for up to 42 months. Thus begins ...

Democrats Slip Bringing Terrorists to American Prisons into Defense Bill
Senator Mark Kirk (R, IL) is raising a red flag over the defense bill because the Democrat led House of Representatives and Democrat led Senate has slipped in a provision that would allow accused Terrorists to be housed in Prisons in the interior of the United States. In an apparent effort to get around the President’s decision to ignore his own deadline to shut down the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba terrorist detention facility, the Democrat leadership included the provision in order to give terr...

Protesters complain about oil spill claims process
Baton Rouge, La. — Ministers and others affiliated with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference protested at the Louisiana Capitol what they called an unfair process for doling out money to Gulf Oil Spill Victims. About 250 people were part of the Protest Thursday. They say Kenneth Feinberg, the administrator of a $20 billion fund set up by BP PLC, isn’t doing enough for the poorest claimants, like hotel and restaurant workers. They say claims are denied with little explana...

Plancher family attorneys seek punitive damages from UCF
Attorneys representing the family of UCF football player Ereck Plancher have filed a motion seeking Punitive Damages in the pending wrongful-death Lawsuit, accusing the UCF Athletic Association and UCF Board of Trustees of gross negligence. Plancher, a 19-year-old Wide Receiver from Naples, collapsed and died following an Offseason conditioning Workout on the UCF campus March 18, 2008. The Workout was supervised by UCF coach George O'Leary and his staff. Enock and Giselle Plancher, Ereck's par...

Sweating Bullets at the GAO
The authors of the Government Accountability Office's for-profit secret shopper investigation pulled off a statistically impressive feat in August. Let's set aside for the moment that on Nov. 30, the government Watchdog quietly revealed that its influential Testimony on for-profit colleges was riddled with errors, with 16 of the 28 findings requiring revisions. More interesting is the fact that all 16 of the errors run in the same direction--casting for-profits in the worst possible li...